Now we have ducks and a pond....

We saw an advertisement in the newspaper advertising ducks, chickens, turkeys and geese for sale at a local service station (only between 10am and 11am!) and we thought we wouldn't mind some ducks to go with our chickens so off we went to see what sort of birds Mobil had to offer!

To my surprise there were lots of people all eager to purchase their choice of fowl. There were all varieties of ducks and chickens, some geese and the odd turkey all in tip top condition and the farmer was obviously a poultry man taking great pride in his stock. All the birds were well covered, had glossy feathers, were outgoing and outspoken! Not being a duck connoisseur (yet) I just chose the ones I thought were pretty - I might regret that in the long term...

Welcome Milton and Penelope :)

Now those familiar with our property might be asking where the pond came from. We commissioned Aaron who lives next door to build us a road next to the riding arena which will become the main access path to the stables which are being built at the end of the arena. Aaron started the earthworks and then it rained, and rained, and rained and now we have a pond.

BTW, it rained again....

Milton and Penelope think it is the best thing ever and I think they will be very disappointed when we drain it to continue the road making. Penelope has been popping out an egg almost everyday and I was hoping that she would sit on them but it doesn't appear as though she is going to so John bought an incubator and Alice is currently chief in charge of egg hatching. We have 17 eggs that are fertilised (Milton is quite active *blush*) and currently being nurtured. Here they are prior to being incubated (it's not all of them)

Fingers crossed that we can make more ducks from them!
The rooster now has a name! His name is Rocky as he is quite the pugilist and Buddy (the dog), Milton and I often end up on the wrong end of his temper! Can't complain though he's a very good guardian for the ladies who are now producing between 22 and 30 eggs a week. You go girls!

Here is a picture of Rocky overseeing some ladies at the beauty salon and a restaurant.

The chickens have arrived!

The chickens actually arrived over a week ago but I had my wisdom teeth out and totally underestimated the recovery required and haven't really felt like doing anything much...

Here are the last lot of before chicken photos:

John did a super job :) My friend Miranda thinks that it is Cluckingham Palace - ha ha ha

Here come the chickens!





First Eggs! Very Happy :)

We were given the chickens by John's grandfather and I think that they are Columbian Wyandotte's but I'm happy to be corrected if they're not... We have a rooster and 5 laying hens.

We are averaging 3 eggs a day at the moment so are producing ample eggs for our current needs. I am putting horse manure into the pen roughly every second day and the chickens are loving it - well they look happy to my novice chicken eye - ha ha ha

Cheers,
Trish and John

Chicken House almost ready!

We had a busy weekend with family commitments so didn't quite finish the chicken house but we are the majority of the way there. It's coming together really well now and Eliza Jane (John's eldest daughter) helped us out - thanks Eliza Jane!

Here are some pictures of our progress:



Eliza Jane is working really hard!



Hopefully foxes aren't his smart...



Where to start

I am a planner. I'll start with that right up front so that you know what you're in for. My husband John is a doer so this usually works well for us except for when John is doing things without a plan. Lots of things get done but not necessarily how/where/when I would like them done *grin*

To ensure that both of our needs are addressed we decided to plan so that then he can do what needs to be done - perfect harmony ;)

What we really want as the basic elements of our property are:

• Horse paddocks that produce enough feed to minimise the need for hay and supplemental feeding and sustain healthy, happy horses
• Orchard(s) to produce fruit and nuts
• Vegetable gardens to produce food from a known (and loved!) source
• Chickens and ducks to help us with the gardening and to produce happy eggs
• A place where we want to be :)

So having the broad brush strokes is super but we need to know more about how to achieve our Utopia. We started reading, researching and generally becoming more informed about what the details would need to be to get to where we're going. This is when I came across the concept of permaculture and decided that we needed to get a permaculture design for our acerage.

Welcome Very Edible Gardens! I found these guys by searching the web for people who produce permaculture designs and asked them to come out and give us a hand with creating our plan. On the 3rd of September Dan, Adam and Lex came for a visit and took a myriad of measurements, soil samples and our ideas and are in the process of turning all of our enthusiasm into a plan. Very exciting!

In the meantime, John has been very busy building a chicken house and straw yard from and existing shed. Here are some picutres:

Horse poo everywhere thanks to the previous owners. My job is to get rid of it...

We've had a lot of rain but the water is not draining becasue of all the horse poo.

All the horse poo is gone and the ground is drying out - yay!

So this is the progress so far, we should have it finished next weekend.

Cheers,
Trish

Welcome!

Hi everyone and welcome to Gryphons Landing :)

John and I purchased this property in August 2010 with the intention of staying here for about 20 years (OMG!) The property is almost 7 acres and it's a big rectangle with not very much on it. We have some trees around the border, a shed which we currently live in, a few outbuildings and a dressage arena. Here are the pics that real estate agent used to sell us the property:

The property was on the market for quite some time so of course it wasn't as pristine as this when we took possession - ha ha ha!

Our aim is to produce a sustainable smallholding that accomodates our horses and allows us to produce our own fruit and vegetables and hopefully some meat animals. We'll see how we go and I will try to keep a record of our progress via this blog. All comments and suggestions are most welcome!

Cheers,
Trish